The Red Road (18 page)

“How can you ‘look’ gay?” I
asked incredulously.

“Oi, Joe, wait for us.”

So busy had I been talking to Baz
that I hadn’t seen Sam and Dave coming towards us. Dave’s
knees were somewhat dirty and a little blooded. Baz and I slowed our
pace, so that the two could get their names checked off and catch us
up.

“What happened to you?” I asked,
looking at Dave’s knees.

“Tripped,” Dave said.

“No one punched you?” I asked
again. It wasn’t unusual for boys to be attacked and roughed up on
cross-country jogs. Here, on this secluded run, surrounded by
woodland and away from the main roads, was an ideal place for a spot
of bullying or revenge that would go unnoticed and unreported.

That and other things.

“No,” Dave repeated. “I just
caught my foot on a rock. I almost face-planted. Let’s keep going.
I think it’s going to rain in a bit.”

“Are you okay, Sam?” I asked.

Sam nodded, but said nothing. He was
panting quite hard. Usually fine with these runs (never one to ever
complain, unlike most others), today he looked as though he was
struggling with it quite a bit. I would let him puff his way to the
end.

“Hey, Dave,” Baz grinned, as we
picked up the pace once more. “Do you think that Damien Sanderson
is gay?”

“Sanderson?” Dave asked.
“Definitely! He’s joining the gay society of whatever university
he goes to, for sure. He’s going to be the bottom of the couple,
too.”

“The what?” I asked.

“The bottom,” Dave repeated.
“There’s always two types with gay men – the top and the
bottom.”

“You know how with lesbians
there’s always the butch one and girly one?” Baz added, seeing
the bemused expression on my face. “Well, with gay men the bottom
is the effeminate one, and the top is the big beefy one.”

“Guys, that’s a stereotype,” I
said. “I don’t think it’s actually like that in real life.”

“And the girl in the couple is
always the one that gets fucked,” Dave chuckled. “Damien is
clearly the girl.”

“I don’t really what to know,”
I said, looking to move the conversation on to different subject.
“Who did you have your French oral with, Dave?”

“Why did you suddenly think of
that?” Dave laughed.

“Ha ha,” I answered
sarcastically. “No, seriously, who?”

“That bastard Bertrand.”

“Ah. Me too. Spoke really fast for
you too, eh?” I said.

“Couldn’t understand a damn
thing he was saying. I swear he only does that with people he doesn’t
like. He’s a real cock. He wouldn’t repeat anything he said
either, even when I asked him to.”

“Did you ask him in French?”

“Yeah, and he ignored me.”

“Wanker,” I said. “Just as
long as I don’t have him for the actual exam next term.”

“You probably will,” Dave said,
dodging around a group of first years coming the other way, who
looked as though they were about to pass out from the stress of the
run at any minute. “Apparently, they like to keep the teacher the
same, so you can know what to expect.”

“Oh, Christ,” I said. “Well,
that’s my French exam failed.” In my mind’s eye I saw my
application to BSFC being rejected due to the D grade sticking out on
the paper like a sore thumb.

We continued on, Sam causing us to
have to stop a couple of times. He looked as though he was going to
vomit. Despite the stops, I was quite surprised to see that there
were still a number of boys yet to complete the first leg of the run.
Baz and I had clearly been making good time when we started. Most of
those yet to reach the checkpoint were first and second years though,
so perhaps not.

“What mocks have you got left to
do?” Dave asked.

“Just chemistry,” Baz said.
“I’ve got that tomorrow afternoon.”

“Me too,” I said. “I’ll get
some revision in when we get back.”

~ ~ ~

Someone had taken my towel. I
thought that was a trick only played in the first and second years of
your senior school. I peeked out the shower room, looking about the
changing rooms to see if I could find where it had gone. Perhaps
someone had taken it in error and, realising their mistake, had just
dumped it out there to save themselves embarrassment. Nothing. It had
likely been taken intentionally.

I didn’t think that Baz would have
moved it; he was beyond doing stuff like that. I would have asked
someone else to go to my dorm and bring me back a spare, but I was
alone. I considered staying in the shower a little longer until
another boy showed up, but there was a distinct lack of hot water. It
was tepid, and I was starting to feel a little cold. I wondered where
Sam was. Probably still passed out on his bed. There was only one
thing for it – I was going to have to run for the third year dorm
with my hands covering my crotch. I made to do so when the door of
the shower room was shoved open and three fully-clothed boys came
striding in. Sixth formers.

“So, you think you’re pretty
fucking cool, do you, Crosthwaite?” Craig Priest asked. “Attacking
me in public like that?” He was flanked by two others from his
year, Justin Murphy and Orson Bishop. Bishop made a show of cracking
his knuckles.

My stomach flipped, and I felt a
spike of adrenaline rush through my body, my heart rate increasing. I
had never found myself in such a situation before, though it was very
clear what was about to happen. That was why my towel had gone
missing, and also why no one else had come into the shower block. The
three, perhaps even four, one more still standing outside, were
preventing anyone else from coming in until Priest had had ‘a
word’. They had most likely threatened one of the younger boys into
taking my towel, to stall me for a bit. This wasn’t good, not good
at all. I made to get around them, but the three were blocking the
exit. Windows presented the only other way out, but high up as we
were in the main school building, that meant a thirty or forty-foot drop to the ground.

“Don’t think you’re going
anywhere,” Bishop said, grabbing me, turning me around, and shoving
me back into the communal shower block.

“Do you like touching naked boys?”
was the only immediate retort I could think of. “You can go to
prison for that sort of thing you know.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Priest said,
grabbing hold of my hair and jerking my head about. “That was a
really stupid thing you did the other day, and you need to be taught
a lesson!”

“Get the fuck off me!” I shouted
at him, raising my voice enough to hope someone would hear without
directly calling for help. No one did.

Priest pulled my hair tighter, his
face red, his eyes narrowed and fierce. “Do you think you’re
hard, do you?”

“No, I’m not gay. You might be,
though. Touching me has probably given you a semi already.”

I had no idea why I said that.
Perhaps it was because of the conversation I had had on the Road with
Dave and Baz. The next thing I knew was that Priest had punched me in
the face, hard. I cried out and scrabbled at his hands, to try and
stop him from delivering another blow. Bishop and Murphy moved in to
help restrain me, and, with my hands held behind my back, Priest
punched me twice more in the face.

“FUCK OFF!” I shouted at him.

The three said nothing, and Priest
punched me again in the face, my vision starting to blur, my head
spinning. I slipped on the wet floor, lowering my head to try and
avoid further blows, feeling my legs become wobbly. Another blow
came, striking the left side of my face, followed by a punch to the
stomach that immediately winded me. I then felt one of my arms slip
free, whichever of the sixth formers holding me unable to maintain a
grip on my wet skin. The second arm followed, and I leapt out of the
way, stumbling and skidding along the floor. A kick meant for my
groin missed, the shoe scraping up my thigh and razing the skin
there, leaving a dirty black print in its wake. I could have made a
run for the door, but instead I rounded on the three. My face was
burning, blood running down my nose and out of my mouth, where I had
split and bitten my lip. Anger had made me choose fight over flight.

“Get him!” Priest instructed
Bishop and Murphy.

At that moment, I pounced directly
for Priest, knocking him down. His head smashed against the wall of
the shower, with a loud crack.

“Arghh!” Priest cried.

I was on top of him the next
instant. He appeared dazed for a moment, only just focusing on what
was happening.

“Get the fuck off him!”

“Come here, you prick! We’re
going to fucking kill you!”

I felt Bishop and Murphy again
trying to grab hold of me, but they were once more struggling to
maintain a purchase on my skin. It wouldn’t be long before they
did, however. I looked down into Priest’s face. If he was going to
leave me bruised and bloodied in the shower for the rest of Butcher
House to find, then I was at least going to give him a bloody nose
for his trouble. I drew back a fist to do so, when something else
overtook me, and instead of punching him in the face, I drew back
both hands and brought down two fingers each directly into his eyes.

The effect was immediate.

Priest screamed in agony, and before
I knew what had happened, I had trust my fingers into his eyes once
more. Both Bishop and Murphy stopped clawing at me and instead jumped
back, shock clearly registering on their faces.

“Arghh! My eyes! My eyes!”
Priest started, covering his face and trying to escape. “I can’t
see! Help! Help!”

Bishop and Murphy remained rooted to
the spot for a moment, unable to speak or do anything. Bishop then
moved forward, pushing me aside and starting to sooth Priest.

“Craig, are you okay?” he asked.

“I can’t fucking see! Help me!”
Priest responded.

I watched as Bishop helped Priest
up, only vaguely aware that I was lying on the floor of the shower
block, bruised, naked, and with blood still running down my chin.

“I’m going to take you back to
Tudor,” Bishop said, starting out the shower.

“No! Take me to the nurse!
Quickly!” Priest wailed, his hands still covering his eyes, his
voice quivering.

“You took it too far,
Crosthwaite,” Bishop said, looking back at me before he and Priest
exited the shower block.

“Too far?!” I spluttered,
feeling the rage starting to return.

“Yeah, you took it too far,”
Murphy said. “We were just going to knock you about a bit.”

“So, you guys you were going to
knock me out or break my nose or my arms or whatever, and now that I
defend myself,
I’ve
taken it too far?!”

“You could have blinded him,”
Murphy started.

“Like I fucking care!” I shouted
at him, getting to my feet, pushing him aside and starting back
towards my dorm.

There was a gathering of other boys
just outside the shower room, mostly first and second years, who had
been disallowed entry while the three sixth formers corrected the
case of insubordination.

“What’s happened?” I heard
someone ask as boys looked from me, to Orson, Priest and the expected
fourth sixth former, hastening to the school nurse.

“Just teaching someone an
important lesson,” I responded, not caring that I was marching
stark naked down the corridors of Butcher House. “A lesson in
life.”

~ ~ ~

I expected repercussions in the
hours that followed from a group of Priest’s friends, who would have
decided to finish what he had started. Repercussions came, but
not in the manner that I had expected.

“So, what was this all about,
Joe?” my housemaster wanted to know.

I looked to Priest, sitting next to
me in Mr Somers’ office, his hands near his eyes. They were
extremely red, and the pupils were wandering a little. Every now and
again, he would touch gingerly at the swollen area and rub the eye
socket itself very gently. I could appreciate how much it probably
hurt. I had been hit in the eye by the tapered end of a rugby ball
once. It had been painful for several days after, and I had been
barred from contact sports for two weeks.

“He attacked me in the shower,
sir,” I said. “I defended myself.”

“It doesn’t look to me like you
were defending yourself,” Mr Hancock rumbled, eyeing Priest once
again. The man was standing to one side, arms folded across just
chest, just like a nightclub bouncer.

“Sir, they attacked me and
threatened to knock me out,” I countered, looking to both men.

“I don’t think that’s what
they would have done,” Mr Somers said.

What?
“Sir, look at my
face!” I said, pointing to my swollen nose and the bruising that
was still quite prominent there, it only being four or five hours
since the incident. “I’ve got more on my legs and stomach if you
want to see,” I added, making to stand.

“Sit down!” Mr Somers snapped at
me. “Joe, what you did is very serious. You could have put Craig’s
eyes out and blinded him.”

“Aren’t you going to ask him why
he attacked me?” I snapped back. “Don’t you
care
? I
didn’t
do
anything!”

“Don’t answer back,” Mr
Hancock warned me.

“I will get to that in a minute,”
Mr Somers said, seeing me glare at Tudor’s housemaster. “But
right now, I need you to understand the seriousness of your actions.
You pushed both your fingers into this boy’s eyes. That could have
left him blind for the rest of his life. You might think that you
were just defending yourself, but what you did was totally and
utterly inexcusable.”

“I did what I had to do,” I
said.

“No, you didn’t. There was no
need for this.”

“Yes, there was! There were
three
of them. They practically had me pinned to the floor.”

“Joe, you’ve been warned already
not to answer back.”

That was a typical response from a
teacher who could see they were already losing the argument. I looked
at Mr Hancock, not finding him quite as intimidating as usual. “What
would you have said if Craig had broken my nose and my arm? Would you
have just let him off?”